On 7th November 2017 Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, TD, launched a major nationwide initiative aimed at fostering the next generation of skilled problem solvers for Ireland. The Problem-Solving Initiative (PSI) will encourage Irish youngsters to hone their lateral-thinking skills, and will create enthusiasm within the Irish public for problem-solving by engaging people directly with mind-bending puzzles and challenges. It will also promote career pathways in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) for those who enjoy solving problems. The two-year initiative is delivered by the ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology, and funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).

On Saturday 29th October, 24 undergraduate teams from 4 different Universities converged on the School of Computing, DCU, to do battle in the 4th annual UK & Ireland Programming Competition.

The UKIEPC is a sub-regional competition of the North West European Programming Competition (NWERC) and ultimately the prestigious ACM ICPC contest. This year there were over 200 teams, totaling around 550 students from 26 different universities around the UK and Ireland pitting their wits against a common problem set. Each team had to solve as many problems as possible in the shortest period of time, with time penalties added for every incorrect solution submitted.

This year, the DCU site was generously sponsored by Arista Networks, with Amazon vouchers for 2nd and 3rd placed teams and funded travel for the best placed team to attend the NWERC competition at Bath University in November.